May 7, 2011

"This is a long story, so stay with me: When a was younger I was living in an old part of Liverpool that had been bombed during the war, most of the houses on the street I lived on were either destroyed, badly damaged or empty. I lived on the top floor of an old Victorian row house, the houses either side, were empty and boarded up.There was a young couple on the ground floor, the middle floor was empty and I lived on the top my with my dog, Blue, and Old English sheepdog, blind as a bat. One evening, I was making my dinner, when I heard awful screaming coming from downstairs. I looked over the banister to see the girl that lived on the ground floor crawling up the stairs screaming and screaming that he was dead. I ran downstairs and she was hysterically pointing to their bedroom. I went inside and there’s her boyfriend, Tony, laying on the floor, he’s dressed in women’s clothing, fishnet tights, high-heels, short skirt, etc, he’d tied himself in chains with snap-locks and had put a plastic bag over his head. I could see his contorted face through the plastic, his eyes and mouth wide open as he must have struggled for his dying breath. I leaned over and touched him, but he was stiff as a board, I guess he’d been dead for some time. Anyway, the cops and ambulance came and took the body away, and his girlfriends family came and took her away too.They came back a couple of days later for some of her things and threw out a bunch of his stuff, amongst which, was an almost new electric drill motor that I rescued from the trash. They also asked me to feed the cat they had until things got settled and gave me tins of cat food. So for about three or four weeks, I got into the habit of feeding the cat last thing, at night before I went to bed.The apartments were laid out such that all the rooms, (living room, bathroom, bedroom, etc), opened into a central hallway and each room had its own doorlock. When she left, the only room she left open was the kitchen for me to feed the cat...all the others were locked tight.So the fateful night arrives, and I’m not making this up: Saturday night and I’m watching a late night horror movie called ‘The Norliss Tapes’ about a dead guy that won’t stay dead, there’s a storm outside with thunder and lightning rattling the windows and blowing through the house like a Banshee. About an hour into the movie, there’s a tremendous bang from somewhere in the house, and I think, "Oh, it’s only the doors on the middle floor that were never locked swinging closed with the wind"...time passes and there’s another bang, Blue’s all a tremble, and I leap out of my skin.The dead guy in the movie won’t stay dead, there’s a freaking storm going on outside, and now there’s a door somewhere in the house banging...and I’m all alone.The movie finally ends at 1:00 am or whatever, and I says to Blue, "Come on lets go feed the cat"...I open a tin of cat food and proceed down the flights of stairs, (BTW the light switch in the stairwell were an old fashioned sucker type, you pushed them in and after a while they popped out to shut the light off). We pass the middle apartment and all the doors are closed, I pause for a moment wondering, then shrug and carry on. I’m halfway down the last flight of stairs to where I can see his bedroom door, and the door starts to slowly open, swinging inwards; the door has been locked since Tony died.The door gets halfway open, stops, then slams shut with a might crash, then, right at that moment, the sucker switch clicks off and the lights go out, it’s absolutely pitch black. The cat food goes flying and it’s a race between Blue and I who gets upstairs first; I won. I get back to my flat and my heart is pounding and I’m absolutely terrified, none of my doors have locks on them and there’s only one way out of the house and that’s past his bedroom door; no external fire escape in those days. I stood there for a while wondering what to do and eventually pushed on the light switch, went to the banister and looked over; and there, standing in the stairwell three floors below me is Tony looking up at me, and he’s still got the plastic bag on his head!Why my heart didn’t stop rightthen and there, I’ll never know. There’s only one other way out and that’s a 2’ square hole in the wall between the row house’s filled with a single layer of drywall as an emergency escape. I kicked at the drywall like a madman until it broke and crawled through into the house next door which had been boarded up for years. There’s crap all over the floor and I stumbled out of the room in the dark and down the stairs, halfway down the second flight the stairs had fallen away and I flew through the air and crashed onto the landing with the wind knocked out of me. I got up and ran down the final flights and to the front door, but I can’t get the stinking door open, I didn’t know how to open it in the dark, and I’m still terrified, expecting Tony to grab me any minute wanting his drill back.I went into the front room and started kicking and banging at the plywood that had been nailed from the outside. Eventually the plywood fell out and I jumped through the window, I landed on a nail with my knee which hurt like hell, then took off down the street.I wandered the streets for I don’t know how long, ending up at a friend’s house at 4:00 am. I went back to the house later that day with a bunch of friends and got my stuff, I never told anyone what had happened, I just said I had a beef with the landlord.I was frightened even in the daylight with my buddies to go into that house and I look back over the years and wonder just what I did see that night; I don’t believe in ghosts or any kind of supernatural events, but at that moment I was as scared as I’ve ever been.But the saddest part is Blue was gone, I guess he followed me through the hole and got lost, I never did find him again.It’s the stone cold truth. Happened in 1973, I wasn’t drunk or on drugs either. At one time, I thought it was my buddies playing a trick on me, but none of them ever coughed up to it.I don’t know what I saw; I don’t believe in ghosts, then or now, but that vision was as real as could be. Over the years, I have convinced myself it was some form of hysteria; the movie, the storm and just the general atmosphere in the house. Whatever; it happened."